Chapter 70: E-Rank

“Next person?”

The NPC called out to Soo Hyuk again.

“Excuse me. It’s your turn now.”

At the NPC’s call, the users that were behind Soo Hyuk all haggled at him with annoyed voices.

“Ah, yes. Sorry.”

Finally snapping out of his thoughts, Soo Hyuk closed his character tab and walked forward to the NPC.

“What have you come here for?”

“I want to see the mission catalogue.”

Soo Hyuk answered while getting out his new token from his inventory. The NPC quickly verified the token, then pulled out a stack of papers from his drawer and handed them to Soo Hyuk. It was the E-rank mission catalogue.

“Tell me after choosing.”

At the NPC’s words, Soo Hyuk received the paper from the NPC and started looking through the different missions.

‘Hmm?’

Soo Hyuk cocked his head as he read through the list.

‘Are they only in F-rank?’

What Soo Hyuk was looking for was a mission that required gathering items to complete, but he couldn’t spot them anywhere so far on the list.

‘Hmph.’

When Soo Hyuk arrived at the last mission on the list without any progress, he let out a dissatisfied grunt and went back to the first page again.

‘This is probably the next best one.’,

He thought while staring at the very first on the list. It was an orc hunting mission, and since there were a lot of orcs around Hadrac’s outskirts, it wouldn’t take a long time.

“I’ll choose this mission.”

[You have selected the quest ‘Orc Village Investigation’,]

After he received the mission from the NPC, Soo Hyuk came out of the Mercenary Agency and opened his quest window.

[Orc Village Investigation]

Orcs have been appearing near the city of Hadrac. Go to their village and stop them!

[Orcs: 0 / 200 ]

[Quest Reward: 200 gold]

‘The NPC said that the orcs were everywhere except on the southern side.’

After remembering what the NPC said before, Soo Hyuk closed his quest window and turned towards the east. There was no particular reason, just that the closest city gates to the agency were the eastern gates.

“Who wants to go goblin hunting together!”

“Looking for people to hunt tigers together! We have healers and tanks already! Just need a damage dealer! Magicians are welcome!”

Soo Hyuk was met with a scenery similar to the Matab city gates as he arrived at the crowded east gate.

‘Gates are gates.’

He thought as he looked around at the numerous users searching for a party. Of course, he wasn’t planning to join a party himself, so he headed out alone to the hunting areas around Hadrac.

-Human!

-It’s a human!

Soo Hyuk entered the ‘Goblin Plains’ not long after he headed out. Immediately, goblins jumped at him ferociously, swinging their short weapons.

“Flame Dance.”

Meanwhile, Soo Hyuk was unfazed by their sudden attacks as he calmly cast Flame Dance and burned the goblins down to ashes.

“Firebolt.”

“Poison Sphere.”

“Poison Chains.”

For the next ten minutes, goblins kept leaping at him from the tall grass, while Soo Hyuk reacted quickly with various spells with Soo Hyuk coming out victorious each time. And so, he was able to escape the goblin plains and arrive at the Kamain Mountains, the habitat of the orcs.

“Looking for a party!”

“We need a healer! Is there a healer anywhere? Our party member is dying! We’ll give you compensation!”

Like the city gates, the entrance to the Kamian Mountains also had a lot of users camped around it. They were calling out to each other, trying to get into parties and whatnot.

“Hey, isn’t that a poison magician?”

“Wow, a poison magician.”

“That’s a poison magician, right?”

“Yeah…”

“That user, I respect him. How did make it here with poison magic? I heard it was a crazy hard element.”

As Soo Hyuk was walking through the crowds of users, his ears picked up a conversation between three users, who were talking loudly while pointing at him.

‘Is it just those guys, or are poison magicians generally badly received?’

Soo Hyuk thought as he listened to their conversation. He had already known that poison magicians were the least popular out of all the elements, both as an element and a choice in hunting parties. However, it seemed he had underestimated just how much they were looked down on.

“Excuse me Mr Magician, do you want to party with us?

“Ah, I’m sorry, I’m already in a party.”

“Are you perhaps a healing magician? Can we hunt in a party?”

“Do we leave immediately if I do?”

Magicians were few in number in Hadrac, so there were naturally many trying to party with them. In other words, magicians were popular. However, no one could be seen trying to approach Soo Hyuk.

‘Even though I wasn’t going to party up…’

If someone had come up to him and asked to party up, he would’ve refused them without hesitation. But even so, seeing no one approaching him left him with a bad aftertaste.

At that moment.

“Excuse me!”

As he was feeling grumpy about his poor popularity, someone walked up to him and blocked his path.

“Eh?”

Soo Hyuk couldn’t help but feel flustered as he stared at a woman in front of him.

“Hello!”

The woman greeted him cheerfully.

“Ah, yes. Nice to meet you.”

Soo Hyuk tentatively greeted her back as he tried to hide his confusion.

“Do you remember me?”

“Err…”

However, he ended up falling deeper into confusion at the woman’s next question.

‘Do I know her?’

Remember? Did he know her before? All sorts of questions popped into existence, yet he still couldn’t remember.

‘Did she make a mistake? But now that I look at her again, she seems familiar…’

He couldn’t deny that there was a familiar feeling coming from the woman. He felt that the memory was just an arm’s reach away, yet he couldn’t quite get his head around it.

“So you don’t remember!”

The woman then arbitrarily came to a conclusion by herself when she noticed his reaction. Though she wasn’t wrong, he was still frustrated.

“Oren library? Do you remember now?”

“…Ah!”

Soo Hyuk exclaimed in realisation when she offered a hint.

‘It was that woman!’

The woman that he had met at the Oren Library. She had rattled on about how wisdom could be increased in other ways, how reading was inefficient, and so on. Of course, he didn’t look down on, or even have a negative feeling about her because of it.

“Ah, hello again.”

Soo Hyuk greeted the woman again after he remembered her.

“You finally remembered!”

The woman exclaimed while smiling in response to his greeting.

“Did you perhaps come here to hunt orcs?”

“Yes, it’s because of a mission.”

“Then do you want to hunt together? We have a healer, a tanker and everything!”

The first person to offer to team up. Although it raised his self-esteem slightly, it was a shame that he had to refuse.

“I’m sorry. I need to hurry somewhere else after hunting for a while.”

He answered. He was not hunting to level up. He was hunting for a mission. 200 orcs? It would be over in a blink of an eye. Partying on the other hand would slow him down to a crawl.

“Ah, I see…”

The woman made a regretful expression at his answer and said goodbye with a slight bow.

“Then I’ll see you next time! Have fun hunting!”

The woman then reverted to her usual cheerful tone and ran back to her waiting party members.

“Do you know him?”

“Yep. He’s the person I met at the library.”

“Ah, that person who used the library just to read books?”

Her conversations with her party rang out as Soo Hyuk started walking again.

-Chueek!

-Human! Chueek!

“Panther-nim! Heals please!”

“Stream of Life!”

Was it because they were near the outskirts?

“Hey, where are the orcs?”

“Should we go in more?”

“Yeah, let’s.”

There were more users than the orcs, so hunting near the entrance would take a longer time than in the depths of the mountains.

‘I’ll just use the subspace on my way back.’

And so, he headed further inside the mountains.

-Chueek! Humans! Chuueek!

-Kill him! Gueek!

“Heal, heal please! Quickly!”

“It’s on cooldown! Use a potion first!”

Soo Hyuk could still faintly hear the yells of various users as he kept walking. Then at some point, silence descended as users disappeared from around him.

-Uuek?

-Human, chueek.

As Soo Hyuk approached the orcs, he thought,

‘Now let’s hunt these orcs.’

He could hunt without fear now that the competitors were far away from him. He was more afraid of user ambushes than the monsters.

“Flame Dance.”

Beginning with the two orcs in front of him, he began his slaughter.

“Firestorm!”

“Poison Storm!”

“Poison Cloud!”

A new drop appeared every second.

‘The eyeballs…’

The most eye-catching drop was the sheer number of eyeballs in the drop window.

‘This is why it was 1 gold.’

He had been wondering why the monster drop was so cheap but looking at the continuously rising eyeballs, the reason was obvious.

Then Soo Hyuk, who was still firing spells at the orcs, checked his quest window to see his progress. After a few more spells, the nearly full count was satisfied and his hunt ended.

“Archmage’s Subspace.”

[Warping to the Archmage’s Subspace.]

—

Mercenary Agency 2nd floor.

‘Unbelievable.’

Rowling, who was one of the receptionists on the 2nd floor, muttered in shock.

‘How long has it been since he received the mission?’

Although he asked in his head, he already knew the answer.

‘It hasn’t even been 1 hour yet! He already hunted 200 orcs at that time?’

He had already verified that this was true through the Mercenary Token. There had never been a case where the token was false, but that meant that this man had indeed hunted 200 orcs. But there was another problem.

‘An E-rank did this?’

Rowling had a blank look on his face as he struggled to get around.

“Am I done?”

The man asked.

“Ah, yes…”

Looking at the man who had a dumb expression on his face, Rowling couldn’t help but get a bit angry.

“Then could you return my token?”

But the man’s next words woke him up from his daze and he hurriedly returned the token. He then also took out the box containing the rewards.

“Then goodbye.”

Once the man received his token and rewards, he returned to the 1st floor with a goodbye. Meanwhile, Rowling stared at the man’s descending back and thought,

‘Soo Hyuk…’

The man’s name was Soo Hyuk.

‘I’ll have to pay attention to him.’

“Could you please show me your token?”

Rowling resumed his work with Soo hyuk on the back of his mind.

Then 50 minutes later.

“…”

Rowling was surprised again by a person who had walked up to him.

‘Again? How…’

The man from 50 minutes ago. That Soo Hyuk had returned at lightning speed again.

“Here you go.”

Soo Hyuk was holding out his mercenary token.

‘Don’t tell me he completed another mission?’

People only came up to the 2nd floor for one reason only. The completion of a mission. Rowling received Soo Hyuk’s token with a flustered face.

‘Crazy!’

When Rowling looked at the records on the token, he couldn’t help but scream inside.

‘He hunted 50 ogres?!’

The records clearly showed that he had received a mission about hunting ogres. Ogres weren’t weak in any way. With their powerful physique, even hunting one was difficult. But this man had just set a record for the fastest time to hunt 50 ogres.

‘Not even 1 hour!’

Hunting 50 ogres was hard in itself, but doing it in under an hour? This Soo Hyuk was definitely not at the standard of an E-rank. When his soul was about to escape from his mouth,

“Did you finish?”

Soo Hyuk asked.

“Y-yes, could you please wait a moment?”

Rowling hurriedly returned his token and reward. When Soo Hyuk received them, he stood up and walked down to the 1st floor just like before.

‘Don’t tell he’s going to come again?’

Rowling muttered as he stared at the disappearing figure. He had a bad feeling about this. Then 1 hour later, his hunch came true.

“Here you go.”

Soo Hyuk, who was still nonchalantly handing him his token. At such a man, Rowling couldn’t do anything but stare with his jaws on the floor.